Sendmail has a
friendlier set of prompts, but both of these packages have slowed down
system startup when not configured optimally.

Worse, even with the presumably correct "stand alone" selection for the
average desktop machine the default configuration is taking the time to time
out some network requests on boot. (see bug filed agains exim4)
I think a MTA should defenitaly be installed though configured to handle local
mail by default. And MUAs should all look for local mail out of the box
anyway, wich unfortunately seems not to be the case with many of the desktop
MUAs (desktops tend to ignore the goods of the system too much).

I'm thinking of a networked world, where all of our data is accessible
from anywhere all of the time. Storing mail on a dedicated server
seems like the right place, rather than on a home pc. Perhaps using
IMAP on the server. That way I can access my mail from my PDA or cell
phone while away. For a notebook user I can see a good argument for
storing them in both places. What do you think?